COMME des GARÇONS x Nike Dunk High

Heralded designer Rei Kawakubo spun a curious tale for show attendees to decipher at her Spring ‘17 COMME des GARÇONS Homme Plus show last June in Paris.

A humorous nod to Hans Christian Andersen’s account of an emperor’s vain misfortune — that he was tricked into buying and wearing “invisible clothing,” thus exposing himself — the collection interprets the story’s underlying contradiction of invisibility as transparency.

Also explained as a take on today’s culture of information overload and over-sharing, the show provided the debut of “invisible shoes” created with Nike, the NikeLab Dunk Hi x COMME des GARÇONS. (The clear-soled NikeLab Air VaporMax x COMME des GARÇONS debuted in similar fashion at the Spring ’17 show last October.)

The Dunk retains its leather overlay, in black, over a clear PVC vamp, quarter, tongue and collar, revealing foam underneath the tongue and collar, in addition to the wearer’s sock choice. Holes on the medial quarter and vamp provide ventilation.

The NikeLab Dunk Hi x COMME des GARÇONS is available February 8 exclusively at COMME des GARÇONS New York.